TEN REASONS I NEED TO GET OUT OF MICHIGAN
Because I sometimes think people think I'm not serious about this...
1) I’M MISERABLE. Really, do I need more explanation than that? I’m not happy here. I want to be in the big, wide world. Not this. God, not this.
2) THERE ARE NO JOBS. To hear the news tell it, Michigan’s economy is recovering. There are fewer people getting unemployment! There are more jobs! All is well! Yeah. Right. Fewer people are receiving unemployment because it’s run out. Sometimes, there are new jobs; for example, occasionally factories will announce via the news the creation of a whole 35 jobs. Which doesn’t sound impressive to begin with, and is even less so when you are one of 5,000 applicants. Plus, there’s always at least one story a week about how some business or other has closed, causing 100 people to lose jobs. And many of the jobs available won’t even interview someone who is ‘overqualified’ for a position.
3) ALLERGIES. One of the big reasons I didn’t like Louisville is that it’s apparently one of the worst cities for allergies. I get them bad here in Michigan, to the point where they incapacitate me. And the only meds I can take that are strong enough to handle them put me to sleep. And when summer allergies end, I get that lovely winter cousin of allergies, eczema. Which can be so painful at times it makes me cry. I want to live in an area with different plant life that I may not be allergic to.
4) WINTER. I hate winter. Oh, God, how I hate winter. I hate being cold, and I am always cold in the winter. It doesn’t matter how high the heat is, how well the windows are double-glazed, how many layers of clothes I wear; the cold gets into my bones and I just want to curl up in bed and never leave it. If one more person tells me that I would miss snow if I lived somewhere like California, I’m going to break their nose. We had a relatively snow-less, warm winter recently. It was glorious.
5) WINTER DRIVING. Winter driving terrifies me. As in, crippling, mind-numbing terror that goes beyond a respect for what ice can do to roads. It’s more like a phobia for me. I’ve been driving for seventeen years and I’m not used to it; obviously, I’m never going to be. The roads get bad, here. This area is low priority, so it usually doesn’t see a plow for days after a storm. A lot of roads are hilly, have a lot of curves, and are lined with either steep drop-offs or really solid lines of trees. There are a scary amount of stop signs that just happen to be at the top or bottom of hills, where ice makes things like ‘stopping’ a rather risky procedure. And it doesn’t matter how slow I drive, how careful I am; other drivers don’t seem to grasp the simple physics of ‘momentum’ and ‘friction-free surfaces’ like ice. They’ll ride my ass, trying to force me to go the speed limit, and I’ll be terrified to stop because they’d slam into me. Most people around here have four-wheel drive, and they seem to think that makes them invincible tanks and they can plow through everything and drive as fast as they please. It’s not a coincidence that most vehicles seen in slide-offs are four wheel drive. And the semis… Every year, we have at least one pile-up because a semi was going too fast and jackknifed. Hell, one of my sister’s bridesmaids was killed by a semi last year (in the semi driver’s defense, he was actually being careful; my sister’s friend just hit a patch of ice, lost control, and sailed into his lane. He was too close to stop in time.) But, yeah… I’ve actually been in tears driving in the winter because I’ve been so terrified of the road conditions and the drivers around me.
6) SUMMER DRIVING. And then winter ends and I have to deal with summer driving. There are huge potholes that result from winter, and road construction that lasts for months and only fixes about a mile stretch of road. Then there are the drivers. I have a friend from Colorado who spent a few months in Wisconsin. She was stunned by how rude, careless, and all-around stupid the drivers are here. (And when she came to get me to take me down to Louisville, she had Words about the kind of traffic she encountered up here.) And she’s not the only one who’s made this point; I have another friend who I visited down in North Carolina several years ago. While there, she let me drive her car, and told me I wouldn’t believe just how polite the other drivers were. She was right. Drivers there didn’t tailgate me, or cut me off, or force me aside, even when I was driving slow because I was in an unfamiliar area and didn’t know where exactly my turn off was. It was wonderful.
7) I HAVE NO FRIENDS. It’s true. There’s no one within a 500 mile radius that I can hang out and have fun with. I’ve tried to make friends, but it’s like I just can’t relate to the people around here. The major topics of conversation around here are children, guns, and the weather. If I probe a bit, to see if they’re fans of any TV shows, they usually like shows like ‘American Idol’ or ‘The Bachelor/ette.’ I know people like this exist all over the world, but at least in bigger population centers, there are a wider variety of people and I’m more likely to find someone I can bond with.
8) GAS PRICES ARE RIDICULOUS. The gas here tends to be some $0.40 above the national average. Since this is an area where cars are a necessity (the closest town is five miles, and there’s nothing useful there, like grocery stores, banks, or jobs), this adds up. Supposedly, this extra is tax money to fix the roads. Yeah. Right.
9) IT‘S KINDA TERRIFYING HERE. People say it’s ‘safer’ in a small town. Yeah. That’s why, when I take walks, I carry pepper spray. Seriously, in my immediate area, we have a guy who’s been in and out of jail, who kills animals for fun, and leaves bags of bloody bones beside the road; his occasionally visiting brother who was in jail for murder; the convicted sex offender who likes to sit around outside with his ass hanging out of his jeans; the person/people who tried to siphon our gas; the mobile meth labs who feel safe around here because cops come down these roads maybe once a year and would never get here in time if there was an emergency call; and let’s not forget the real winners around the corner who had a party with alcohol and left a loaded gun sitting out, and were shocked when someone died. I know cities are no better, but it can’t be said that small towns are a better environment.
10) SHE WILL COME BACK AND MAKE MY LIFE HELL. My father’s second ex-wife is a verbally abusive bully who can’t keep a job or save money. She WILL somehow find a way to screw up in her current job and eventually end up moving back in with my Dad. This isn’t fear, this is FACT; she’s been in Arizona barely a year, and is on her third job. I’m not sure how she lost her first job; she has a million different explanations, all concerning other people who have it in for her (she always blames others, and never sees the faults in herself.) The second job she lost because she was there three weeks and took about five days off (again, this was somehow not her fault.) And she hates her current job, which means she’ll do something incredibly stupid and lose it. And she’ll come back here because she can’t last a week without a paycheck (she’s that irresponsible) and she’ll pick away at me with her endless snide comments and try to isolate me from my family (she made a point of doing a lot of things with my Dad and siblings, and making sure I was left at home.) Hell, even though she’s halfway across the country, she still finds ways to jab at me, either attacking me via Facebook or being nasty on the answering machine. I hadn’t realized just how much of a negative effect she had on me until recently, when a family of cyclists went down our road, and one of them called out to one of the others and sounded just like her; same strident, whiny tone, same bossiness, and, even though I knew it was impossible that she was there, I froze up, and spent several minutes after that trembling. I can’t live with her again. I don’t want to be near her at all; even when I was living in a different town, she found ways to antagonize me. I don’t want to be somewhere where she wants
1) I’M MISERABLE. Really, do I need more explanation than that? I’m not happy here. I want to be in the big, wide world. Not this. God, not this.
2) THERE ARE NO JOBS. To hear the news tell it, Michigan’s economy is recovering. There are fewer people getting unemployment! There are more jobs! All is well! Yeah. Right. Fewer people are receiving unemployment because it’s run out. Sometimes, there are new jobs; for example, occasionally factories will announce via the news the creation of a whole 35 jobs. Which doesn’t sound impressive to begin with, and is even less so when you are one of 5,000 applicants. Plus, there’s always at least one story a week about how some business or other has closed, causing 100 people to lose jobs. And many of the jobs available won’t even interview someone who is ‘overqualified’ for a position.
3) ALLERGIES. One of the big reasons I didn’t like Louisville is that it’s apparently one of the worst cities for allergies. I get them bad here in Michigan, to the point where they incapacitate me. And the only meds I can take that are strong enough to handle them put me to sleep. And when summer allergies end, I get that lovely winter cousin of allergies, eczema. Which can be so painful at times it makes me cry. I want to live in an area with different plant life that I may not be allergic to.
4) WINTER. I hate winter. Oh, God, how I hate winter. I hate being cold, and I am always cold in the winter. It doesn’t matter how high the heat is, how well the windows are double-glazed, how many layers of clothes I wear; the cold gets into my bones and I just want to curl up in bed and never leave it. If one more person tells me that I would miss snow if I lived somewhere like California, I’m going to break their nose. We had a relatively snow-less, warm winter recently. It was glorious.
5) WINTER DRIVING. Winter driving terrifies me. As in, crippling, mind-numbing terror that goes beyond a respect for what ice can do to roads. It’s more like a phobia for me. I’ve been driving for seventeen years and I’m not used to it; obviously, I’m never going to be. The roads get bad, here. This area is low priority, so it usually doesn’t see a plow for days after a storm. A lot of roads are hilly, have a lot of curves, and are lined with either steep drop-offs or really solid lines of trees. There are a scary amount of stop signs that just happen to be at the top or bottom of hills, where ice makes things like ‘stopping’ a rather risky procedure. And it doesn’t matter how slow I drive, how careful I am; other drivers don’t seem to grasp the simple physics of ‘momentum’ and ‘friction-free surfaces’ like ice. They’ll ride my ass, trying to force me to go the speed limit, and I’ll be terrified to stop because they’d slam into me. Most people around here have four-wheel drive, and they seem to think that makes them invincible tanks and they can plow through everything and drive as fast as they please. It’s not a coincidence that most vehicles seen in slide-offs are four wheel drive. And the semis… Every year, we have at least one pile-up because a semi was going too fast and jackknifed. Hell, one of my sister’s bridesmaids was killed by a semi last year (in the semi driver’s defense, he was actually being careful; my sister’s friend just hit a patch of ice, lost control, and sailed into his lane. He was too close to stop in time.) But, yeah… I’ve actually been in tears driving in the winter because I’ve been so terrified of the road conditions and the drivers around me.
6) SUMMER DRIVING. And then winter ends and I have to deal with summer driving. There are huge potholes that result from winter, and road construction that lasts for months and only fixes about a mile stretch of road. Then there are the drivers. I have a friend from Colorado who spent a few months in Wisconsin. She was stunned by how rude, careless, and all-around stupid the drivers are here. (And when she came to get me to take me down to Louisville, she had Words about the kind of traffic she encountered up here.) And she’s not the only one who’s made this point; I have another friend who I visited down in North Carolina several years ago. While there, she let me drive her car, and told me I wouldn’t believe just how polite the other drivers were. She was right. Drivers there didn’t tailgate me, or cut me off, or force me aside, even when I was driving slow because I was in an unfamiliar area and didn’t know where exactly my turn off was. It was wonderful.
7) I HAVE NO FRIENDS. It’s true. There’s no one within a 500 mile radius that I can hang out and have fun with. I’ve tried to make friends, but it’s like I just can’t relate to the people around here. The major topics of conversation around here are children, guns, and the weather. If I probe a bit, to see if they’re fans of any TV shows, they usually like shows like ‘American Idol’ or ‘The Bachelor/ette.’ I know people like this exist all over the world, but at least in bigger population centers, there are a wider variety of people and I’m more likely to find someone I can bond with.
8) GAS PRICES ARE RIDICULOUS. The gas here tends to be some $0.40 above the national average. Since this is an area where cars are a necessity (the closest town is five miles, and there’s nothing useful there, like grocery stores, banks, or jobs), this adds up. Supposedly, this extra is tax money to fix the roads. Yeah. Right.
9) IT‘S KINDA TERRIFYING HERE. People say it’s ‘safer’ in a small town. Yeah. That’s why, when I take walks, I carry pepper spray. Seriously, in my immediate area, we have a guy who’s been in and out of jail, who kills animals for fun, and leaves bags of bloody bones beside the road; his occasionally visiting brother who was in jail for murder; the convicted sex offender who likes to sit around outside with his ass hanging out of his jeans; the person/people who tried to siphon our gas; the mobile meth labs who feel safe around here because cops come down these roads maybe once a year and would never get here in time if there was an emergency call; and let’s not forget the real winners around the corner who had a party with alcohol and left a loaded gun sitting out, and were shocked when someone died. I know cities are no better, but it can’t be said that small towns are a better environment.
10) SHE WILL COME BACK AND MAKE MY LIFE HELL. My father’s second ex-wife is a verbally abusive bully who can’t keep a job or save money. She WILL somehow find a way to screw up in her current job and eventually end up moving back in with my Dad. This isn’t fear, this is FACT; she’s been in Arizona barely a year, and is on her third job. I’m not sure how she lost her first job; she has a million different explanations, all concerning other people who have it in for her (she always blames others, and never sees the faults in herself.) The second job she lost because she was there three weeks and took about five days off (again, this was somehow not her fault.) And she hates her current job, which means she’ll do something incredibly stupid and lose it. And she’ll come back here because she can’t last a week without a paycheck (she’s that irresponsible) and she’ll pick away at me with her endless snide comments and try to isolate me from my family (she made a point of doing a lot of things with my Dad and siblings, and making sure I was left at home.) Hell, even though she’s halfway across the country, she still finds ways to jab at me, either attacking me via Facebook or being nasty on the answering machine. I hadn’t realized just how much of a negative effect she had on me until recently, when a family of cyclists went down our road, and one of them called out to one of the others and sounded just like her; same strident, whiny tone, same bossiness, and, even though I knew it was impossible that she was there, I froze up, and spent several minutes after that trembling. I can’t live with her again. I don’t want to be near her at all; even when I was living in a different town, she found ways to antagonize me. I don’t want to be somewhere where she wants